


Nerve

by murphallo



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Nerve (2016) Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gay Male Character, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27764344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murphallo/pseuds/murphallo
Summary: Alex's band isn't doing too hot. They need a quick way to get their names out and make a few extra bucks while doing it. Enter Alex's two most adventurous best friends suggesting the three play Nerve, a game of dare, where Players play for cash. The night takes a turn when the group meets Willie, a handsome skateboarder Alex quickly sets his eye on. (Inspired by, but not based on, the 2016 movie Nerve. Boys are 19 and Julie is 18. Light PG13 cursing here and there. No background knowledge of the movie is required lol I explain everything that needs explanation.)
Relationships: Alex & Julie Molina, Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie & Willie, Alex & Luke Patterson & Reggie & Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex & Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex & Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex & Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina & Luke Patterson, Julie Molina & Willie, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 30
Kudos: 88





	1. Nobodies

Alex didn’t think it was possible to cheat at Connect Four, but he could’ve sworn Julie found a way. She had beat him time and time again since Luke and Reggie left for Chinese food, and Alex couldn’t figure out how, but it was hard to be mad about losing when his best friend wouldn’t even brag about winning for long; she’d have her fun for a moment, then she’d just give him a high five and challenge him to another round. 

“Let’s switch colors,” Alex suggested.

Julie’s eyebrows knitted together. “Why?”

“I think yellow is a lucky color for you or something.”

”You realize that if you get yellow, I get the first move, right?”

After careful consideration, Alex slowly drew a red piece from the box.

Alex blocked a sideways chain of three Julie had painstakingly set up, making her groan. This time he was playing for blood. She monitored the board, eyeing every piece for her next move, but he had her dead to rights. At most, she’d get a tie, but she couldn’t win again.

Suddenly, the door swung open and Alex heard Reggie’s voice declare “FOOD’S HERE!” making Alex look toward the door. 

“Sorry we took so long, the line was crazy,” Luke said, removing his jacket. “What’d we miss?”

“Your turn,” Julie said, snapping Alex’s attention back to the game.

“What do you mean, ‘my turn’?”

“I already went.”

 _No no no no no._ He couldn’t tell where she’d put her piece, couldn’t tell where she’d anticipated he’d put his. No spots he thought she’d choose had a piece in them. “I hate you guys,” he muttered under his breath to Reggie and Luke, dropping a red piece in a random place on top.

Julie grinned as she dropped her last piece on the bottom row, connecting a diagonal chain of four that Alex didn’t even see forming. “You guys planned this!” Alex cried, pointing back and forth between Luke and Julie. 

“Nope,” Luke replied, walking across the room to kiss his girlfriend on the cheek. “She’s just smarter than you.”

Luke released their game, beginning to put away the pieces, confusing Alex. “Hey, what are you doing? I still have to beat her!”

“Sorry, bro. Dinner’s a little early tonight. We’ve gotta run something by you.”

“‘We’ being…”

“Me and Reggie!”

Alex and Julie looked between each other, fear in both of their eyes. Plans made by only Reggie and Luke tended to be… subpar at best. 

“Food first, though,” Reggie demanded, setting his bags of food on the dining table. 

They each dished their own food out onto paper plates, pouring various sodas into plastic cups. 

Alex and Reggie’s furniture was too cheap for them to worry about spillage, so Alex sat on the couch and Julie sat on the loveseat as Luke and Reggie stood in the middle of the living room, getting into full presentation mode. 

“Okay, so,” Luke started. “Where are we right now?”

“... Alex and Reggie’s apartment?”

“Yes!” Luke exclaimed, pointing at Julie. “Alex and Reggie’s crappy apartment above a back alley bar. You are sitting on $150 mismatched furniture they got in a garage sale. No offense, Reg.”

“None taken.”

“Okay, now where do we wanna be?”  
“Some kind of mansion,” Alex cut in. “Hopefully one with a pool. Maybe a minibar when we can drink. Wouldn’t really _mind_ a private chef, if we’re dreaming.”

“Onstage,” Luke corrected. “We should be onstage performing right now in a gigantic sold-out venue, but we’re on our butts in a crappy apartment eating cheap Chinese food.”

“It’s only, like, 5 pm, so we’d probably be getting ready for a soundcheck.”

“So what went wrong?” Luke continued, ignoring Alex. “We only have, like, 200,000 monthly Spotify listeners and less on Youtube.”

“It’s hard making music in LA, we already knew that,” Julie defended. “We pop up at clubs, we call in favors, we beg for record deals from labels all around the city. We do what we can.”

“But what if we could do more?” Reggie chimed in. “What if we didn’t have to ask anyone else for help?”

“What do you mean?” Julie asked.

“A self-funded album,” Luke answered. “We could make a real, fancy album in a real recording studio. A long one, with all new songs, none that we’ve already played or shown anyone. And we’ll sell it in fancy record stores and go on tour promoting it.” He looked to Julie, awaiting her response. 

Julie tried her best to look supportive, but Alex could see she was trying to figure out if Luke had finally lost it. “That sounds great! I think we definitely should write new songs, but…”

“Luke, buddy, we are flat broke,” Alex interrupted. “We barely make rent, how are we supposed to scrape together the money for an album, let alone a tour?”

Reggie pointed at Alex. “I’m glad you asked! Have you guys heard of Nerve?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys!! This is Chapter 1 of a 13 chapter fic I plan to post over the next like month-ish. It has the same basic structure as the movie with different events, so like the movie, it's gonna get anxious close to the end, but I'll be letting you all know when the tension starts to rise for my readers with anxiety. Close to the end, I'm also thinking about posting the final chapter publication date in the notes so that readers with anxiety can come back to the story when it's all finished. Most chapters are slightly longer than this. No Willie in this chapter yet, but he's coming, this chapter is just setting up the basic premise and character motivations of the story. Hope you guys enjoy the ride!!


	2. Watcher or Player?

Julie’s chow mein dangled out of her mouth as she was too shocked to finish her bite. 

“No?” Alex answered. “What is that?”

Reggie sat next to Alex, showing him a sketchy looking link on his phone, as Julie chewed with a fury. “It’s this dare game that goes on every year,” Reggie replied. “You can win a whole bunch of money just for doing stupid stuff around the city.”

“Plus, like, the whole city watches so it’s a ton of free publicity,” Luke added.

Right as Reggie was about to click the link to show Alex, Julie finished swallowing her chow mein. “No!” she cried. “No, we are not playing Nerve!”

“We don’t all have to play,” Reggie responded over Alex. “Luke and I can win enough money. And Alex, if you’re down for it.”

As a response, Alex clicked the link Reggie had in front of him, prompting it to open, displaying a weird 90’s esque style design of the word “NERVE” in big letters. A robotic male voice began to explain the game as a collection of related pictures and GIFs were rapidly displayed onscreen.

“Welcome to Nerve: Los Angeles,” the voice began. “Nerve is a 24-hour game, like Truth or Dare, minus the Truth. Watchers pay to watch. Players play to win cash and glory. Are you a Watcher or a Player? Are you a Watcher or a Player? Are you a Watcher or a Player?” 

The video closed and Reggie looked at Alex for a response. 

“This seems really sketchy,” he responded.

“It’s not,” Luke assured. “People get real money and real fame from this every year.”

“Fame?”

“Yeah, like, they get a whole bunch of Instagram followers and stuff. It could really help us promote our music!”

Julie had heard enough. She stomped over to the couch and snatched the phone from Reggie’s hand, slapping it on the boys’ ottoman. “That’s nice, but none of you are doing it. I’ve heard about this and Nerve is dangerous. People can get seriously hurt doing these dares.”

“Obviously, we’re not gonna do anything to get hurt. If anyone dares us to do anything really stupid, we’ll decline! And we’ll end the game with a whole lot of money and a whole lot of followers.”

“Yeah! By tomorrow morning, we’ll be thousands richer and millions of followers more famous!”

Luke shot eye daggers at Reggie as Julie yelled “It’s _tonight?!_ ”

“Reggie wasn’t supposed to mention that ‘til you agreed, but yeah, it’s tonight. And we’re only gonna play for a few hours. We’ve been talking about this for a few weeks now and we really think it’s gonna work out!”

Alex had seen Luke’s puppy dog eyes work on Julie many times, but she was not backing down about this. “You guys, this is ridiculous. What good is money or fame gonna do if one of you ends up in the hospital seriously hurt? Or worse?”

“It won’t get that bad, I promise. Reggie and I will look out for each other. And we’ll be even safer if we bring Alex. Alex, did you wanna play?”

They all looked at him, and Alex was incredulous that they’d even ask. “Um… no? Obviously.”

“SEE?!” Julie shrieked, and Luke sighed. “Alex isn’t going because Alex knows that this is a royally stupid idea!”

Reggie cut in. “Alex isn’t going because he’s chicken. There’s a difference.”

“No, it is stupid, for sure,” Alex expressed. 

“THANK YOU!” Julie cried out.

“Come on, man!” Luke sighed.

“But,” he continued, making Julie and Luke switch facial expressions. “It does seem like it’s a lot of money. And if they say they can do it without getting hurt, I think we should let them give it a try. If they can get $500 for stealing a candy bar, why not?”

“YES!” Luke and Reggie both stuck their fists in the air, celebrating winning Alex over.

Julie looked at Alex like he’d just shot her dog, and for a second, he felt guilty for agreeing to this.

“Fine,” she said, shocking the room. “Then I’m coming with you.”

“Woah,” Luke said with a small laugh. “No. You and Alex can just stay here and watch on your phones and we’ll be back soon.”

“Oh, so you can be too scared for me to play, but you don’t see why this is scaring the hell out of me?”

Luke looked to Reggie and Alex for support, but they both shrugged. She did have a solid point. 

“Fine,” Luke agreed. “You can come with us as a Watcher.”

“Well, if she’s going, I’m going,” Alex said, standing up off the couch. “I’m not gonna let you guys get Julie into something stupid.”

“So you _do_ think they’re gonna get in trouble?!” she accused.

“ _Just_ in case of an emergency,” Luke responded, rubbing Julie’s arms and nodding to Alex. “Good idea, bro, thanks.”

Julie was still looking terrified, and for a moment, Alex considered pulling the plug on this whole operation. Luke and Reggie would never make a major decision that both Alex and Julie strongly disagreed with. “I hate this,” she muttered. 

“Hey,” Luke said, trying to use his most comforting voice. “The second we get a dare you don’t want us to do, we pull the plug. Immediately.”

She nodded but obviously didn’t take much comfort in his promise. 

“First Player signed up!” Reggie said proudly, holding up his phone, which was now reciting the rules to the game. “I sent you guys the link to sign up.”

Julie opened up her new text from Reggie, wincing as she clicked the link, waited for the app to download, then opened it. “Watcher,” she said out loud as she clicked the left option. “I have to pay $20?!”

“I will pay you back the $20!” Luke said, reaching to hit the “OK” button for her. “Now, I guess you gotta give them your fingerprint.”

She did, repeatedly muttering the words “I hate this” under her breath the whole time it was scanning. They all watched as her full name was encoded into an anonymous screen name. 

Luke took his phone out of his pocket, opening the Nerve app. “Wanna hit the Player button for me?”

Julie’s eyebrows crinkled. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Sentiment. To show support.”

“I literally do not support this,” she said, hitting the button as he smiled. Satisfied.

“Awww, too cute,” Reggie teased them, as Luke’s phone recited the rules.

Alex opened his text from Reggie.

“Awww,” Luke mocked back. “Reggie’s jealous again.” He started to lean toward him, making kissy noises.

Alex clicked the link and waited for his phone to download the app.

“Stop! Ew! Move!” Reggie said, pushing Luke away, but the push moved both Luke and himself. Luke lightly bumped into Julie and Reggie lightly bumped into Alex, nudging his index finger ever-so-slightly to the right.

Just right enough to click the big, red “PLAYER” option.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys liked this installment!! I'm probably not gonna post chapters back to back like this from here on out I'm just trying to speed my way to Willie's introduction LMAO (it's next chapter btw oop) but yeah tell me what you guys think in the comments below!! Also leave a kudo if you enjoyed and bookmark if you wanna see more!!


	3. First Dare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW: M*GA acronym, allusion to tr*mp without calling him by name (not plot-important though)

Alex didn’t even register what had happened until the robot voice started, and this time he was forced to listen to it, ignoring the flashing pictures and videos again. 

“Hello. Welcome to Nerve. You have chosen: Player. Nerve is a direct democracy. Watchers decide your dares. The two Players with the most Watchers by the end of regulation will advance to the final round, where the winner takes all. Watchers can watch from anywhere, but they are encouraged to film live, so don’t be alarmed. There are 3 rules: 1. All dares must be filmed on the Player’s phone. 2. There are only 2 ways to be eliminated: fail or bail. 3. Snitches get stitches. Thank you for keeping Nerve a secret. Good luck, Player.”

Alex had rested his thumb on his phone screen as the video played, leading to the phone registering his thumbprint, officially registering him for the game.

That was when the panic started.

“AAAAAAAAAAAA!” he screamed at his phone, before turning to Luke and Reggie. “AAAAAAAAAAAA!”

“ALEX, IT’S OKAY!” Reggie tried to scream over him.

“AAAAAAAAAAAA, I’M GONNA DIE!”

“WE WON’T LET THAT HAPPEN, BUDDY, WE PROMISE!”

“REGGIE, YOU BASTARD, YOU SIGNED ME UP FOR THIS STUPID ASS GAME!”

“ALEX!” Luke was now yelling with them. “YOU ARE OUR BROTHER AND WE LOVE YOU AND WE WILL PROTECT YOU WITH OUR LIVES!”   


“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

“GUYS!” yelled the one person who could shut them up with ease: Julie. “You can just decline the first dare you get. Then you’re out of the game.”

“Oh,” Alex said, not ashamed of his tantrum, but not  _ not  _ ashamed as the other boys calmed down too.

All 3 boys had the question “Are you ready for your first dare?” on display with a big “ACCEPT” button next to it as the only option, which they all clicked. 

All 3 phones had the same message:  _ Go to Bea Bea’s breakfast cafe.  _ A countdown from 15 minutes began.

“It’s not gonna let me decline until we go to the restaurant, is it?” Alex groaned. 

Reggie, ever the optimist, couldn’t wait to start the night. “At least our first dare is something to do together!”

Upon arrival at Bea Bea’s, Alex’s phone was the only one to chime, offering him his first dare. He was prepared to click “Decline” until he actually read it.

_ Come out to a stranger: $100 _

Obviously, whoever chose this dare didn’t realize how undaunting this would be for him.

“Alex! What are you doing?” Julie asked. “Decline it!”

He held the phone up for her to see. “This is literally the easiest $100 I’ll ever make. And then I'm done.” He clicked “Accept” and his phone started recording from the front camera. 

He scanned the crowd, walking through the aisle as his friends sat at a booth. A nice looking couple on a date he didn’t feel like making awkward. A pair of 50-something-year-old looking heavyset dudes in MAGA hats. No, thanks. An old couple that smiled at him as he passed, making him think  _ aw!  _ Near the back was someone with long hair, tapping drumsticks on the empty table in front of them. He walked over to them and called their attention with a “Hey.”

_ Ho… ly….. Crap.  _ In front of Alex was the most beautiful man he’d ever seen. It felt as if his turn to Alex was in slow motion. His features were sharp, but his eyes were kind. His hair was shiny with a few waves that Alex just wanted to… well, he didn’t even know. He wondered what his own face must look like during the most intense gay panic of his life. “Um…” What was he here for again?  _ Oh, yeah! The dare!  _ He checked his phone and saw he had 10 seconds.

“Uh.. so I’m gay.” The guy gave a polite smile and nodded, with no other response. “Okay, thanks.”

Alex headed over to his friends’ table as his phone chimed that $100 had been deposited in his bank account.   
“That was so stupid,” he announced.

“But hey, $100! Not bad!” Reggie patted Alex on his back.

Both Reggie and Luke’s phones chimed, and Alex read Reggie’s from next to him. 

_ Steal the MAGA hats: $200. _

Reggie looked over his shoulder, and registered the two big guys Alex had seen coming in. Alex saw the unease set in on Reggie and Luke’s faces at the same time. 

“$100 isn’t bad,” Julie announced. “I think we can call it a night.”

“Julie, it’s literally 2 regular guys in a breakfast place,” Reggie countered.

“These guys could have rifles in their pickup trucks or something, I don’t know!”

Luke stepped in to ease Julie’s nerves. “It’s so easy! And both of us together, that’s $400! You really wanna miss out on $400?” Julie sighed, still uncomfortable but the money didn’t lie. “We’ll bolt right after.”

Julie nodded. 

“Okay, so,” Reggie started saying to Luke, “I’ll get up and act like I’m heading to the bathroom. When I turn around, you get up too so we can both sneak up on them and snatch them, got it?”

Luke nodded, and the idiots fist-bumped. Reggie got up, trying too hard to seem inconspicuous, instead looking like the most suspicious man in the restaurant. The MAGA diners didn’t notice though, just continued chatting about God knows what. Once Reggie had gotten a comfortable amount of distance away, he turned back to Luke and extremely dramatically winked. 

Luke rolled his eyes and got up, as Reggie started to turn back around. In sync, they both sped up their steps until…

“Hey, what are you doi-”

At the same time, Luke swiftly stole his guy’s hat, and Reggie pulled his guy’s entire head back, needing a full second to wiggle the hat off. “RUN!” he called as Alex and Julie made their way to their feet and ran out the exit, Luke and Reggie close behind them, angry men close behind Luke and Reggie.

“GO, GO, GO!” Julie screamed once they got out of the restaurant, but Alex was distracted by the sound of hissing air. 

He looked to his left and saw someone wearing a helmet slashing the back tire of a pickup truck. He would’ve said something, but the men were hot on his trail. Or at least they were until they made a sharp left, causing the tire slasher to hop on a skateboard and skate in the group’s direction. It took Alex a second to realize the men’s tires were the ones that just got slashed. 

The skater glided past Alex, yelling “RUN!” in a male voice. Alex broke into a run, last in the group as the skater passed all the way to the front. They all ran as the men screamed obscenities and slurs behind them. They didn’t stop running until they reached a nearby small freeway overpass, Luke laughing ‘til he couldn’t breathe, Julie and Reggie joining. 

“Well, babe, you were right about the pickup trucks!” Luke said between gasping breaths.

“Thank God you were wrong about the rifles though!” Reggie gave Julie a high five.

“Hey!” Julie called to the skater guy. “Thanks for slashing that guy’s tires for us!”

“Thanks for the credit, but,” the skater responded, removing his helmet, causing Alex to realize it was the hot stranger he came out to. “I didn’t do it for you guys.” His phone chimed the same way Alex’s had earlier when money was deposited.

“Ohhhh!” Reggie said as it dawned on him. “You’re playing Nerve!”

“Yeah, I am!” he responded. “Although, I probably would’ve slashed those guys’ tires for free. I’m Willie, by the way.” His voice was soft. Disarming. He shook the hands of Reggie, Julie, and Luke as Alex walked up to be equal to the group. “Oh, hey! You’re the guy that told me you’re gay!”

“Yeah, that was me,” Alex said, shaking his hand. Willie’s hand was rough, but warm with slight callouses.

“Sorry I couldn’t say anything earlier, man, the Watchers said I couldn’t. Someone just handed me drumsticks and told me not to talk to anyone in the restaurant.” His phone chimed, and he checked it. “I’d love to stay and chat,” he told the group, “but I just got another dare. I’ll catch you guys later hopefully.” Before leaving, he gestured to the bright red hats still in Luke and Reggie’s possession. “Hey, I can get rid of those for you.” The two gladly accepted the offer and handed them over. Willie looked the group over once more and his eyes stopped at Alex, who wondered if he was imagining the up and down look Willie had just given him. “It was cool to meet you all.”

With that, he skated away from the overpass, into the night.

Alex finally said what he figured was on everyone’s mind. “Is it just me or was that the best looking guy any of us had ever seen?”

“He was pretty cute,” Julie responded.

“Hey!”

“I just said he was cute!” she responded to Luke’s exclamation. “Not like I’m thirsting like Alex!”

“Can we focus on more important things?” Reggie asked. “Like money? Lots of money?”

The boys all checked their phones to see if another dare was ready. One was.

_ Perform on the overpass. $300. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay!! So we finally get Willie!! The following chapters probably aren't gonna be back to back like this but I wanted to introduce Willie into the story as quick as possible lol. Next chapter will probably be up in a couple days and also watch out for my Juke Christmas fic!! First chapter should be up on the 9th :)


	4. Overpass

“Are you guys out of your minds?!” Julie shrieked as they all clicked “Accept”. 

“Songs are like 3 minutes!” Reggie reasoned. “When was the last time we performed for $100 a minute?!”

“The overpass has 4 lanes and there are 3 of us. We’ll each sing in a different lane and you can record from the shoulder!”

“Luke, you cannot think you’re faster than a car going 90 miles per hour!”

Alex tried to provide a voice of reason. “If we see the car coming from far away, we can definitely get out of the way in time. Cars only come from one direction; it’s gonna be a piece of cake.”

“Sorry to cut this off, but the timer is going down,” Reggie cut in. “We gotta go now.”

The four of them walked up the side hill onto the freeway. It was busier than Alex thought it was gonna be, and the passing cars seemed a lot faster than when he himself was in a car. 

“Let’s make this quick,” he said, taking his place in the slow lane. 

“I’ll see you in a minute,” Luke said to Julie, giving her an uncharacteristically long kiss on her forehead, letting Alex know he was more scared than he was letting on.

Luke made his way to the middle lane and Reggie ran to the carpool lane.  _ Cheater.  _

The dare was less scary than they thought it would be. Alex decided to look at it like a video game and after that, it just became a lot of fun. They performed a song that Luke wrote for their original 3 man band before Julie came into the picture. Alex could barely hear his own singing over the honking of oncoming cars, but it was fun to try to sing over them. Julie was a champ, juggling all 3 of their phones to record. It took her a solid minute to not shriek a bit every time a car passed, and she jumped every time until the end. 

When it was over, Alex waited for Luke and Reggie to safely make it back to the shoulder before he started to walk over himself, too excited to register that the gigantic, honking oncoming semi-truck was honking at  _ him _ in the way. 

He jumped back just in time, petrifying him once he’d found his footing. There were more semis behind, too close together, all too loud to be heard over, but three voices were louder than one, and he could hear all of his friends screaming for him, screaming his name. He screamed as loud as he could until he realized it was useless.

Finally, the trucks were gone, and he ran to the shoulder as his bandmates let out the biggest collective exhale. 

“Oh, man,” Luke muttered. 

Julie ran up to him with tears in her eyes and hugged him. His phone chimed with his bank alert, reminding him that he almost just got hit by a semi for $300. “Don’t ever scare me like that again,” she whispered.

As scared as Alex was, that entire experience had triggered something in him he’d never felt. Even the semis. It was like performing, but more. Like performing ten shows at once. Adrenaline was rushing through his veins and as scared as he was, he wanted more. 

Answering his wish, their phones all chimed with a Nerve alert. He broke from Julie’s hold to read it as she wiped her eyes. 

_ Go to Woodland Ave. _

“That Willie guy has a bunch of Watchers!” Luke announced, shoving the phone in Reggie’s face, then Alex’s.

“Good thing we aren’t playing for Watchers!” Julie countered, slightly cranky from worry. “We’re getting as much money as possible, then going home.”

“Still though,” Reggie said, getting another look at Luke’s phone. “Weird that he has so many followers when he hasn’t been playing for that long.”

Luke showed Alex the phone again, just in time to see Willie film himself walking past a woman sitting at a restaurant table and sneakily swiping her keys from her purse, showing himself giggling after. Willie had a very pretty smile. 

Alex held Julie’s hand the entire way to Woodland Avenue, walking down the street with her until only his phone chimed. He checked his alert.

_ Take a picture on the bike wearing the helmet. $1,000 _

“What bike?” he asked aloud. 

Suddenly, he was blinded by a bunch of lights. After his eyes adjusted, he realized the lights were from the phones of a female friend group of Watchers a few feet away. They all pointed across the street to a shiny black motorcycle, parked right behind a tree planted into the sidewalk cement. It looked new, like someone rich or at least very comfortable owned it. 

“Woah,” he said to the group. “That feels illegal.”

“Yeah, but so is standing in the middle of traffic for 3 minutes,” Reggie replied.  
“Yeah, but… what if the owner comes out and, like, beats me up or something?”

“I’ll take the picture quick! And then we’ll book it!”

“Julie?” he asked her opinion. 

She shrugged. “You survived almost getting hit by a semi. This is definitely way tamer.”

Alex smiled at getting her first official blessing of the night. “Okay!” 

He looked both ways before crossing the street, followed closely behind by Reggie.

“Okay, let’s do this quick,” Reggie said as Alex strapped the motorcycle helmet on, putting down the face shield for anonymity, despite the video evidence of his face picking up said helmet. The dare felt way too simple for a thousand dollars. Maybe Nerve was just easy like that?

He mounted the bike from the backseat to look less like he was trying to steal it. He reached forward to the handlebars and pretended to rev, deciding to have fun with it, since he’d never been on a motorcycle before.

“WOO! ALEX!” the Watchers cheered, and he pretended to rev again, egged on by the attention.

He heard his phone camera make a shutter noise. “Got it!” Reggie exclaimed, handing Alex back his phone. “Woah, woah, WOAH!” 

Alex’s hands were forcefully removed from the handlebars, and when he looked to see who did it, someone with a helmet on was mounting the motorcycle at lightning speed.

Alex didn’t even have time to register what was happening or get off. In a matter of seconds, the motorcycle’s kickstand was kicked up and the motor started, zooming down the street. Instinctually, he held onto the guy in front to keep from falling off. 

Alex looked behind him to see Julie, Luke, and Reggie in the street, attempting to run after the speeding motorcycle, screaming his name. Eventually, they ran out of breath and stopped running, and the motorcycle weaved around cars until the three of them were out of sight.

It wasn’t until the bike turned the corner that Alex finally registered the gravity of the situation: he’d been kidnapped. “Look, man!” he yelled over the sounds of the motorcycle. “I- I’m not worth anything! My family doesn’t have any ransom money, and they probably wouldn’t pay even if they did! I-I don’t have any money, but I got some money from this game tonight and I’ll-”

“Alex!” the motorcycle’s operator yelled. “I’m not kidnapping you!”

The operator fumbled with his face shield while Alex tried to place where he’d heard his voice. He realized the moment before the face shield lifted and the operator looked back at him for one second, before looking back at the road.  
“WILLIE?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aye y'all thanks for the reads and kudos so far!! The next two chapters are really willex centric so stay tuned :))


	5. Twelfth Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello darlings!! I noticed a small spike in hits after I posted that last chapter and I wanted to say thank you!! I also recently learned what story subscriptions are and I wanted to thank those of you who signed up for update alerts on this story it means a ton lololol keep leaving kudos and COMMENTS, I love seeing what you guys think of the story!! The chapter after this will be uploaded on the 10th instead of my usual 3 day waiting period because on the 9th, I'm gonna start uploading the chapters of the short Juke Christmas fic I wrote!! It's gonna be called "5 Days of Christmas" so keep a lookout for that one :)  
> Now on the topic of this fic, I don't really know if I love the pacing of these next two chapters but I had to kinda speed this part up a little to get to the conflict of the story so if these next two chapters feel a little rushed, bear with ya boi lol

Willie was cute, but he wasn’t cute enough for Alex to be okay with this. “WHY DID YOU KIDNAP ME?!” Alex screamed.

“Newsflash, man: we’re playing a game of dare.”

“YOU KIDNAPPED ME ON A DARE?!”

“Yeah, I did! And I’d really love it if you’d stop screaming into my ear!”

“SORRY! Oh, um, sorry! So now what?!”

“Um…” 

“Do you at least know where we’re going?!”

“UM…”

Willie pulled over when they got somewhere less crowded. A small patch of desert right before the freeway entrance. “I gotta call my friends,” Alex announced.

“No worries,” Willie responded. “I’m gonna see what the Watchers want next.”

Julie picked up on the first ring. “Alex!” she gasped, relieved, much less worried than Alex expected.

“Hey! You sound weirdly fine!”

“Yeah, we found you pretty quick with the number of Watchers Willie has. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine! Apparently, the Watchers wanted us to team up or something. We're by the freeway entrance, seeing what our next dare is. What are the guys doing?”

“They’re in that fancy restaurant where you found the bike. They have 10 minutes to steal as many boxes of leftovers as they can before they get caught. They’re getting paid $100 a box!”

Alex smiled at Julie finally sounding like she was enjoying herself. 

“Alex!” Willie called. “We have our next dare!”  
“I gotta go, okay? Stay safe. Don’t get into any trouble.”

“Oh, yeah, because  _ I’m  _ the one to worry about.” She giggled. “Bye!”

Alex hung up to check his dare. 

_ Go to the Hollywood Pantages Theater. _

“That’s not too far,” he said, approaching Willie’s bike as he mounted his phone on the holder to record.   
“Good, because we only have 20 minutes.”

The whole ride there, Alex had his arms around Willie’s waist, and he thought about how unfair it was that he was getting paid to do this. Usually, getting paid to do what he loved meant drumming for adoring, albeit small crowds, but now he was getting rich for hugging a cute boy.

_ Would he notice if I just kinda laid my hands out over his stomach a little? _

He noticed. “I’m glad you’re having fun,” he said, making Alex reassume a proper hold for a motorcycle passenger. Luckily, he didn’t sound weirded out or anything. “Because I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Alex’s gleeful mood was stopped dead in its tracks. “This isn’t your bike?!”

“Nope!” Right before Alex was about to give him another piece of his mind, the Pantages came into view and the bike pulled onto the curb in front. 

There was another larger crowd of Watchers, shining lights into Alex’s eyes. Most of them were cheering Willie’s name, but he couldn’t help but notice that a not-insignificant amount was cheering for him. “HI, ALEX!” one girl screamed when he removed his helmet. She came closer when they approached the doors to the Pantages. “I  _ love  _ your music! You and your band are incredible!”

Alex’s heart was warmed that a fan tracked him down like this. “Thank you so much, we’re doing this for you!”

“Can you sign this?!” she said, bringing out a poster from a time they opened for Saint Motel. 

“Sure!” He signed it quickly and handed it back to her. “I don’t know where Luke, Julie, and Reggie are, but if you find them, I’m sure they’d be pleased to complete that!”

“Oh my god, thank you so much!” The fan squealed, running down the sidewalk with her poster flapping in the wind.

Alex felt Willie’s rough hand gently grab his forearm, guiding him back toward the door. “Didn’t know you were a celebrity,” he smiled.

Once they were through the door, their phones chimed with the Nerve sound and they went to check. 

_ Steal the show for 2 minutes: $5,000 _

Oh no. Oh hell no. “They want us to get on stage for 2 minutes?” Alex whispered since they were now in the lobby.

Willie was nervous too. “And we can’t just hide, either, we have to like… do things.”

“Who recommends this?! Those actors worked so hard!”

“Yeah, and they’re getting paid for it! They’ll be fine!”

“How are we gonna get past security?!”

Willie thought for a few seconds before his eyes lit up like a lightbulb went off in his head. He grabbed Alex’s hand, locking their fingers together. He must have seen the look on Alex’s face because he explained, “Less suspicious if it looks like we’re on a date.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Alex replied, holding his hand tighter so Willie didn’t think his debate meant he had to let go.

“Watch and learn,” Willie said, pulling Alex to the ticket stand. “Hi, we’d like two tickets for, um... tonight’s show?”

“And where are your tickets?” the box office worker asked. On cue, Alex’s phone buzzed, and on it was a barcode. Willie discreetly recorded as he showed the bar code to the worker, but the worker didn’t scan it like they expected. He simply handed them two tickets and two drama masks with a wink.

_ He’s in on it? _

“Come on!” Willie said, pulling Alex in front of the auditorium doors with the biggest smile. “Okay, our seats are… A5 and A6.”

“Willie!” Alex said, stopping them. “I’ve been here! Row A is the front row!”

“Making it much easier to get to the stage, right?”

Willie took the sad drama mask and strapped it to Alex’s face, mocking the look of it when he was done with an exaggerated sad face. Alex laughed, and in turn, Willie laughed with him. After putting his own happy mask on, Willie pushed the doors open, taking Alex’s hand again. 

After making their way to the front row, they sat in their assigned seats, still holding hands, purely to continue the dating charade. Totally just for that reason.

“So you and your friends, you’re all in a band?” Willie whispered, leaning closer to Alex so he could whisper without disturbing others.

Alex stayed where he was, knowing he couldn’t lean any closer to Willie without bursting into flames. “Yeah. By the way, Reggie’s the one with the dark hair who was wearing leather, Luke is the hyper one with a puppy dog face who’s jacked for no reason, and Julie is-”

“The girl, I figure,” Willie interrupted, and Alex could hear him smiling.

Mask or no mask, Alex thought that Willie’s smile that close to him should be illegal. “We should probably pay attention to the show.”

“Oh, yeah, because I’m really interested in…” He paused to check the matching barcode on his phone. “Twelfth Night.”

_ Does the sarcasm mean he’s interested in… me? _

Alex wasn’t sure at what point in the night the shift between  _ “Oh, this guy’s kinda cute”  _ and  _ actual-real-life-crush-on-a-guy-I-don’t-know _ occurred, but the feeling that long term physical contact and close proximity to his smile brought was definitely not an  _ “Oh, this guy’s kinda cute” _ feeling. 

It was a feeling Alex would have loved to stay in longer, but Willie broke the moment. “The timer’s going down,” he announced, suddenly serious. “We gotta move, now.”

Alex’s hand grew cold when Willie’s left it. He mimicked Willie’s body language, crouching down to the opposite end of the stage that his accomplice was heading toward. When he reached the stairs at the bottom of the stage, he looked over at Willie, waiting for him to get to his side. The moment he did, recording phones in hand, they both raced up the many steps to the stage. 

“Hey!” a security guard yelled, but it was too late.

Alex’s Nerve app started a two-minute countdown. The show had begun. 

“BUT SOFT!” he screamed to Willie across the stage. “WHAT LIGHT THROUGH YONDER WINDOW BREAKS?”

Willie looked around for a moment, before rushing over to a startled actress and saying into her costume mic, “Me!”

Alex laughed loud enough for a few rows of the theater to hear him without a mic. He got close to an actor like Willie had and said into the mic sticking out of his collar, “It is the east! And Juliet is the sun!”

“Yes!” Willie replied in a high pitched girly voice. “I am the sun!” 

The actors began to run off the stage, leaving Willie and Alex with no mics and security guards down the aisle, toward the stage. Willie ran across to Alex, unsure of what to do.

Alex decided to take a page from Willie’s book, putting his phone hand on Willie’s shoulder and using the other hand to grab his. Willie laughed from his belly, a beautiful sound, as the two badly waltzed around the stage together. 

When the guards reached the stage, they separated and began to run around the stage as fast as they could. Alex thought Willie must have been living a life of crime with how quickly and gracefully he weaved around the guards, meanwhile, Alex, too tall and awkward to easily maneuver small spaces, had to resort to throwing whatever props he had around him one-handed. A candle, another candle, a lighter, a photo of some guy all thwipped at the guards hard enough to deter them but not enough to hurt them.

“ALEX!” Willie suddenly yelled. “WE GOT A PROBLEM!”

The curtain was starting to come down. If the audience couldn’t see them stealing the show, they’d fail the dare.

“TO THE BACK!” Alex yelled back, maneuvering around the guards, sprinting to the back of the stage as fast as he could, where Willie joined him. The curtain was about halfway down as the guards spread out, closing in, blocking all exits. All except one. Curtain ¾ of the way down. Guards getting too close. “GO!” 

Alex and Willie sprinted as fast as they could directly down the open middle of the guards’ formation, ducking under the curtain at the last possible second. The heavy curtain hit the stage with a loud thunk, leaving the boys in front, standing before a jeering crowd and the security guards yelling from behind. 

As the boys took their stage bow, the timer in Alex’s hand went off, alerting them that they’d completed their dare. The two masked show ruiners sprinted off the stage, out the nearest exit, through the lobby where they noticed the box office worker counting through a medium stack of cash, onto the street, where the crowd of awaiting Watchers applauded them instead.    
  



	6. Reservoir

“HOLY-“ Alex started to exclaim before Willie cut him off.

“Not yet, man, we gotta get out of here first!”

They ran to the bike, Willie jumping on before Alex, and Alex ripped off his own mask before trying to take Willie’s off while he started the motor. 

“AGH!” Willie yelled as the elastic band got caught in his hair. “No time!” More security guards were bursting through the lobby door, but the Watchers were buying the boys some time by blocking their path. Willie passed Alex his motorcycle helmet to put on and swiftly put his own on, mask still attached, before riding off into the night.

“HOLY SHIT!” Alex screamed, and he could hear Willie laughing under his helmet.

“You still feel bad for the actors?!”

“I MEAN, A LITTLE! I feel worse for the security guards we almost crushed with a curtain!” The boys laughed, remembering the guards’ confusion and frustration that a pair of 19-year-olds were alluding them this badly. And publicly. “That box office worker is getting so fired.”

“Yeah, but the Watchers probably paid him enough for a lengthy job search. You were  _ incredible  _ up there, Alex!”

“Nuh-uh! You were like a cat up there, I was just throwing anything I could reach for!”

“And yet, they never caught you!”

Alex’s arms were a bit cold from the night air, so he squeezed onto Willie’s waist to warm them up. “Hey, are you hungry at all?”

“Hold still!” Alex demanded as Willie squirmed.

“Man… you don’t know how this feels!” he whined, facedown on the restaurant table.

“I’ve had long hair, I remember what it was like.” Alex pulled the string to get a better look at the tangle, accidentally snapping it at his own finger. “AGH! I think I almost got it.”

The waitress came, setting their burgers on the table in front of Willie’s prone face. “You better hurry up, dude, I don’t like cold burgers.”

Alex realized there was no way to salvage the band and hooked both index fingers into one loop of elastic and pulled them apart, breaking it. It only took a few seconds to remove the mask after that. “Done!”

Willie got up from the table, running his hands through his freshly freed hair. ‘Thank God!”

They were too hungry for much conversation while they ate. When they had mostly finished, Willie asked Alex, “So why are you guys playing Nerve?”

Alex swallowed the bite he was working on. “My band isn’t doing too well. Feels like nowadays, you only make it as a musician in LA if you’re some celebrity’s kid or you just get lucky. We haven’t gotten lucky.”

“So you’re doing this to promote your music,” Willie nodded, understanding.

“That, and my bandmates had this crazy idea to produce a self-funded album and tour promoting it. Or at least, it was crazy at the beginning of the night.” The beginning of the night felt like an eternity ago.

“Can I see some of your stuff?”

“Yeah, sure!” Alex pulled up a YouTube video of one of his favorite performances they could actually get filmed. They’d played in a dance club and the patrons had stopped dancing with each other to enjoy the song like it was an actual concert. A few seconds into the video, there was a shot of himself on the drums, prompting him to point and exclaim, “That’s me!”

“Ohhh, a drummer! That’s why they gave me drumsticks at Bea Bea’s!”

For a moment, that comment made Alex think about just how choreographed everything with Willie had been so far. Their meeting, their team up, everything was decided by the Watchers, and Alex didn’t know how to feel about that.

Before Alex could ask Willie why he was playing, their phones chimed, signaling their next dare. 

_ Go to the Hollywood Reservoir.  _

They both wiped their mouths and tipped the waitress, knowing the Watchers had paid the bill. They thanked the Watchers outside the restaurant, throwing Willie’s broken drama mask to them, as they started on the ride to the dam. 

The water sparkled under the night sky as Wille pulled up. Under any other circumstances, the reservoir could have been so romantic, but Alex knew the Watchers didn’t have a picnic in mind. 

“Well, that’s weird,” Willie said upon arrival, and as Alex looked in the direction Willie was looking, he saw that he was looking at two skateboards. “Neither of those are mine.”

Right when Alex noticed that each skateboard had a small plastic baggy on top, their phones made the Nerve noise again, causing them to check.

_ Skate off the ramp: $10,000 _

Alex had barely seen it when they pulled up, possibly because he blocked it from view, thinking that thinking about it too much would manifest that exact dare. But now he was forced to look at the giant, Pride Rock sized ramp-like structure that led straight into the water. 

“Well, this was fun,” he declared, starting to walk the way of the street.

“Wait!” Willie called. “You don’t even wanna try?!”

“That would be super dumb even if I could skateboard, which I can’t!”

“I’ll teach you!”

“We only have ten minutes!”

“Which is why we should probably head over there right now!”

Alex bugged his eyes out. “Did you not hear a word I just said?!”

“Come on, man! You should know by now I won’t let anything happen to you!” Before Alex could fully process that sentence, Willie continued. “Plus, the water is super deep, it’s not like you’re gonna hit the bottom.”

“Not a selling point, Willie!”

_ “Please?”  _ Willie asked, giving Alex a respectable version of puppy eyes.

At the top of the ramp, Alex regretted falling for the puppy eyes, wanting to climb back down the steep ladder to flat ground. But he had started the dare now; if he bailed, he’d lose all the money he’d won so far. But then again, if he skated down this ramp and face planted, he’d lose all the money plus his face skin. 

But Willie’s excited smile had been inspiring an  _ Eh, what the hell?  _ attitude in him all night that he was still trying to figure out if he liked or not. 

He reached out a hand to Willie, trying to recreate the moment that had given him so much bravery in the theater, but in response, he looked at Alex like he was crazy. “Dude… that’s, like… guaranteed death.”

“Oh,” Alex responded, putting his hand back at his side. “Right.”

“It’s all about balance, okay, just lean with the board. It’ll feel natural to you with-” Willie cut himself off, making Alex realize he was about to say “practice”. “You’ll be fine.” 

Only 30 seconds were left on the clock, they had to do this now. Plastic baggy holding his recording phone in hand, Willie sailed down the ramp, screaming the whole way. Alex closely followed, gripping his phone baggy with the strength of every cell in him. The ride down was wobbly, but against all odds, Alex soared over the lip of the ramp straight into the air, leaving the skateboard in the dust behind him. By the time he’d reached the peak, his body was so locked up, he couldn’t have let go of his phone if he tried. He screamed as he plummeted into the freezing water below. 

Too deep for his liking. Too dark. Alex clawed through too many feet of water to get to the surface, gasping for breath once he broke through, but something was wrong. Willie wasn’t there to greet him. He’d gone first, he should’ve been above water by now. “Willie?” Alex called, receiving no answer. “WILLIE?” He labored to stick his phone into his pocket, but after finally succeeding, he used both hands to cup around his mouth to amplify his call, 2 nanoseconds from panic. “WILLIE!”

Before Alex could dive back into the cold to search, a hand broke through the water followed by Willie’s long brown hair as he finally broke through the surface, looking a bit like a smiling Samara from The Ring. “Oh, man!” he called out, laughing while swimming closer to Alex. “I fell deep!”

“You- I thought-” Alex started, but he couldn’t form a sentence. 

Willie laughed, moving Alex’s wet, blonde bangs out of his face. “I’m like a cockroach, man. I keep coming back.”

Alex couldn’t think of a joke to return, or words at all, really. He was just happy. Happy they had done it, happy he’d faced his fears, happy they’d lived, happy Willie was in front of him, and he did the only thing that felt right in that moment: he kissed him.

It was just one small peck, but it was enough to change Willie’s entire expression. Where he was once laughing so hard, Alex couldn’t tell if his eyes were closed or not, they were now wide open in shock.

“Sorry,” Alex said, letting the water carry him back a little. “I’m sorry, I just-”

But Alex couldn’t finish his sentence before Willie re-closed the gap, pulling Alex in by the neck to kiss him back. Not a peck, this time, a real kiss. An equally happy kiss.

And that’s how they kissed for an unknown amount of time: cold, accidentally kicking each other beneath the water to stay afloat, struggling to keep their faces together as they created waves that made them bob, laughing when they broke apart without meaning to. Happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAY! So Willex kiss!! Like I said, I don't know how much I liked the pacing of these last two chapters, but the rest of the story is a lot more plot focused than romance focused, so I had to get to that. Thank you guys for the reads and kudos so far, and remember to leave a comment if you're enjoying the story so far! Also remember to go check out the first chapter of my Juke Christmas fic! The first chapter is available to read now :))


	7. First Impression

Eventually, they swam back to land, lying on the edge to restore their strength. “Ah, man!” Willie spoke between heavy breaths. “That was fun!”   


“Which part?” Alex asked, also panting. 

He jokingly swatted Alex’s arm. “All of it!” He stood and reached a hand out to Alex to help him up, which he accepted. Their phones chimed, and Alex checked. It was from his bank saying $10,000 had been deposited into his account.

“Woah,” he said, staring at the number. It dawned on him at that moment that the money was real. All the money he'd earned was his. He excitedly showed it off to Willie, even though Willie had just gotten the same alert.

“Nice, right?” Willie said, giving Alex a high five.

“We should probably get some dry clothes. I’m sure my bandmate has something you can borrow.”

“Oo, I get to meet the family again,” Willie joked, mounting the bike. 

Alex momentarily stood there with a goofy smile at Willie’s joke, before remembering what he was doing and climbing on. 

About 10 minutes into the ride, Alex spread his hands over Willie’s stomach again for warmth, but this time, the gesture made Willie forget that you need two hands to ride a motorcycle. He put a hand over Alex’s, causing the bike to jerk to the left a tad, and after putting his hand back on the handlebar, the two of them laughed until their stomachs hurt. 

Luke and Julie lived in a slightly nicer apartment building than Alex’s and Reggie’s, despite only living a couple of blocks away. While that deserved a social commentary by itself, Alex and Reggie didn’t mind much. Not only were Luke and Julie a couple, but they were the band’s lead singers and worked tirelessly writing most of their songs, so they deserved a bit of luxury. 

After parking, getting off the bike, and removing his helmet, Willie shook out his hair, getting more cold water all over Alex. “Ah! Dude!”

Willie giggled. “Sorry!” He headed for the apartment lobby door, but Alex called out for him to stop. 

“Wait!” He jogged to catch up. “Um, before we go in there, you know, if… if what happened before was, like, the adrenaline or something…”

His voice trailed off as Willie looked at him like he had just grown two heads. “... Are you… serious? Dude, I’ve been flirting for my life all night! I’m totally into you!”

Alex felt all the blood in his body rush to his face.  _ “Really?!” _

“Yeah! I mean, I’d hoped it was mutual if I’m being honest!”

“No, yeah! Totally! Totally mutual!” Already an understatement.

“Okay, great!” They both smiled like idiots as Willie took Alex’s hand again, beaming as they strolled through the double doors into the lobby.

“Alex!” the apartment building receptionist called to him.

“Herman!” he greeted back, walking back over to the elderly man and giving him a fist bump. “This is...”

“Willie,” he said, before turning to whisper to Alex that they could figure out labels tomorrow. 

_ Tomorrow.  _ The concept of having Willie around tomorrow almost felt intangible; he wasn’t even 100% convinced tonight was real yet. Anything about it. 

“Nice to meet you, Willie,” Herman greeted back, before turning back to Alex. “Some teenagers came in here earlier, telling me to give you this.” From under the desk, he retrieved a skateboard with teal wheels and elaborate drawings on the bottom. 

“MY BOARD!” Willie cried, accepting it gratefully. “Oh, thank God! I left it behind when we stole the motorcycle!”

Herman raised an eyebrow. “You two stole a motorcycle?”

Alex dragged Willie and the board toward the elevator. “NOPE!”

Upon Alex opening the door, Luke and Reggie stood to their feet and began clapping as Julie met Alex at the door to hug him.   
“Woah, Jules!” Alex said, hugging her back lightly to get as little water on her as possible. “I just came out of a lake!”

Julie brushed it off, giving Willie a hug too. “You guys are doing so good! You have so many Watchers!”

“I mean, how am I even supposed to compete?!” Reggie said, smiling from ear to ear. 

“Alex, you know where your clothes are,” Julie instructed. “Willie, you can borrow something of Luke’s.”

“Hey!” Luke protested, and Julie shot him a warning look. He sighed. “Willie… you can borrow something of mine.”

Alex thanked his lucky stars for the time he left one of his favorite hoodies here. He donned it as Willie emerged from the bathroom in one of Luke’s old flannels and jeans that were baggy on him.  _ Add to the list of things that should be illegal: Willie + flannels.  _

“Do you think they like me?” Willie asked. 

“They like everybody,” Alex responded, fixing Willie’s crooked collar as an excuse to touch him. “Hey, I never got the chance to ask you earlier, why are you playing Nerve?”

Willie sat next to Alex on his friends’ bed. “I’m a traveler.”

“What’s that?”

“A Nerve traveler is a Player who goes place to place for different regulations. Every year, I go to LA, Portland, Vegas, and New York to play Nerve. If I don’t make enough at one, I just live off leftover money or throw in another event like New Orleans or Chicago. It’s kinda like my job.”

“So that’s why you have so many Watchers,” Alex nodded.

“Yeah! They remember me, and they tune in.”

“So whatever money you make tonight…”

“Is my money,” Willie finished. “For the next, like, 3 months, but that includes travel and food and transportation and everything.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“I decline and take my money when I get dared to do something I don’t feel comfortable with, but they usually try to keep me in the game as long as they can. Dude, the Watchers  _ love  _ me. They never ask me to do anything that’ll get me hurt. I entertain too much.” He held up his phone, blowing a kiss to the camera, reminding Alex that every exchange between them was broadcast across the city.

“Why not just get, like… an actual job?”

Willie shrugged. “I work one night every 3 months and it’s a crazy fun night. Then I can spend the rest of the year doing whatever the hell I want. Pretty good deal if you ask me.”

“If you… if you’re always traveling, then how-” Alex cut himself off this time, stopping himself from asking this guy he’d met hours ago how they were gonna reconstruct their entire lives around each other.

Willie seemed to understand though, and he pulled Alex by his hoodie neckline for another quick kiss, causing Alex to once again forget the entire city was in the room with them. Willie was smiling when they parted. “We’ll figure it out. Now come on! I’m still in the middle of my first impression!”

Alex, Willie, Reggie, Luke, and Julie sat around the living eating stolen fancy leftovers when Reggie’s phone chimed. “So what’d you guys do tonight?” Willie asked them.

“You mean before or after Luke got out of the game?” Reggie responded.

Alex stopped eating, shocked. “Luke, you’re out?”

“Yeah. I declined.” He sounded a little embarrassed.

“What was the dare?”

“Well, the night was already going pretty crazy,” Luke explained. “Reggie undressed a mannequin. I played a song on my guitar shirtless.”

Julie cut in. “I did  _ not _ like that dare.”

“And while we were walking around Brand Boulevard, Reggie found a half-eaten burger on the street with this gross looking rat eating it from the other side. I tried to tell him not to point it out, but it was too late. We got dared to eat it, and Julie wouldn’t let me.”

“Excuse me,” Julie defended. “You tried to get a look at it, all the rat did was looked up at you, and you ran to vomit.”

“On the bright side,” Reggie interrupted. “I made $7,000!”

Alex didn’t want to draw the only logical conclusion. He looked to Willie, who had an expression of horror similar to his own. “You… you ate the rat burger?”

“In my defense,” Julie answered before Alex could blame her, “Luke was throwing up, and when I looked back, Reggie was already chewing.”

Alex still couldn’t quite register it.  _ “YOU ATE… THE RAT BURGER?!” _

“IT DIDN’T LOOK RABID OR ANYTHING!” Reggie yelled back. 

Alex needed to sit down. He collapsed on the loveseat as his existential crisis over his choice of friends continued. “We’ve been monitoring him the last couple of hours and he seems fine!” Luke said, patting Reggie on the back. “Plus, if he gets sick, we have money for a hospital bill now!”

“Luke, we have health insurance.”

His eyes widened at Julie’s words. “WE DO?”

Alex’s head was swirling so bad, he almost didn’t hear Reggie’s phone chime with the Nerve sound. “Decline that right now,” he snapped out of his daze to say. “Whatever that says, decline it right now.”

Reggie rolled his eyes, opening the alert. Alex watched as all color and joking mood drained from his face. “I…” he started, but couldn’t finish. One by one, they all gathered around to read the message on his phone, then looked at him like he’d just gotten some bad news or something. 

“What does it say?” Alex asked, getting off the couch and walking to Reggie across the room. He held the phone up for Alex to read, causing Alex to stop his walk. 

_ Hang from the balcony for 4 minutes: $20,000. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey you guys, we've hit the point in the story I was talking about at the end of the first chapter. Thank you to everyone who's supported the story so far, but it's about to pick up in stakes starting next chapter, so if you have problems with anxiety and can't handle it, I completely understand. Also, not that I expect my story to be living in anyone's mind rent free, but I know the wait between heavy chapters can also be a chore with anxiety. If that's the case for you, you can come back for the completed story when I've finished uploading. I should be uploading the epilogue on January 1st, but even if I haven't uploaded the epilogue yet, the story's conflict will definitely be resolved by then. It'll be resolved on December 29th if you wanna swing by then.  
> If you're into fluffier stories, subscribe to my Juke Christmas fic I'm currently uploading!! I also have a Juke soulmate AU in progress that I should be finished with soon!!  
> Once again, thank you for your support so far :)


	8. Reggie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: talk of death, near-death experience, heights

“Reggie,” Julie started, breaking a long silence in the room. “I know what you’re thinking. Decline the dare.”

He stared at the dare, not declining. 

“I’m with Julie on this one, Reg,” Alex agreed. “It’s not worth the risk.”

He looked up at Alex, holding the phone back up like he hadn’t seen it already. “It’s $20,000.”

“I see the money too,” Luke joined. “But I’m sure if we add up everything we’ve all made, we have way more than $20k. We can definitely make an album off what we already have, plus Alex is still in!”

“But what about tour?”

“You can’t tour if you’re dead,” Julie said softly. “Listen to us. No one here thinks this is a good idea; it’s time to pull the plug- we have enough.”

Reggie thought about the dare with his finger over the “Decline” button, before taking a deep breath, making eye contact with everyone in the room, including Willie, telling all of them “I’m sorry,” and hitting the “Accept” option.

“Reggie!” Julie cried out, putting a hand out to grab his jacket, but he brushed it off, heading for Luke and Julie’s balcony. 

They all followed, trying to get to him before he could get over the edge, but by the time Alex got to the balcony, too much of his body was over. If they touched him now, it was likely he’d fall. He finished crossing over the railing, making it clear he wasn’t coming back over. The toes of his shoes clung to the edge of the balcony floor as he asked Julie to record. She shook her head. “Please, Julie.”

She relented, slowly picking up his phone and pointing the camera at him, looking two seconds away from screaming. “Hey, Watchers!” Reggie bade, trying to remove a hand to wave, but deciding against it. “Pot of gold, baby!”

Slowly, he removed one foot from the edge, letting it dangle, whispering a quick “Hoo!” as he watched it hang.

“Don’t look down, man!” Willie advised, taking a step toward the railing.

The robot voice synced up on all 5 phones. “Back up. 5 feet. Back up. 5 feet.”

Despite every human instinct, they all backed up. If he was gonna do this, it wouldn’t be for nothing.

Finally, he let his other foot slip, securing his hold on the ledge and beginning the countdown. 

At first, he looked fine. He looked better than fine, he was proud of himself. Alex knew he’d been putting in more work at the gym lately, and now his effort was paying off. “How you feeling, Julie?”

“Still not great,” she responded, but she was slightly more at ease. “Still think this is dumb.”

“You won’t be saying that $20,000 from now, will you?” he said laughing, letting another “hoo!” escape. 

About a minute in, Alex, being the one in the middle directly in front of the balcony railing, was the first to notice Reggie’s fingers beginning to shake. He wasn’t even sure if Reggie himself was aware. But soon, his forearms began to shake too, causing the others to notice. “Uh… Reggie?” Alex asked. 

“I’m fine!” he called. “How much left on the clock?”

“3 minutes!” Julie called back.

“Hoo.” After some more time, his fingers were getting dangerously red and his cuticles were turning white. “How much left?”

“Two minutes, 30 seconds.”

“Argh!”

His arms were shaking considerably, his face was turning tomato red, and he was spitting as he tried to breathe. “Reggie, I think you should call it!” Luke was the first to say what they were all thinking. 

“NO!” he spat. “I can do this! Julie, time!”

“Two minutes!”

Luke jumped back in. “Buddy, the average person can’t hang for four minutes, it’s not your fault! The dare wasn’t fair!” 

“I already started, I’m gonna finish!”

They all heard what Reggie was trying to say, even if he couldn’t say it outright at the moment. If he bailed, he’d lose all the money he’d worked so hard and risked rabies to get. 

“Reggie, please,” Julie said, and Alex heard her voice crack. He looked back at her and she had her hand on her chin and tears in her eyes.

“It’s time to bail, dude!” Alex finally said. “You need to bail!”

Reggie was beginning to cry, and Alex couldn’t tell if it was fear for his life or his friends not believing in him or what. “You guys, I can do it.”

“PLEASE!” Julie yelled. “Please, just let us get you back up, don’t worry about the money!”

“How am I supposed to just not worry about the money?!”  
“WE’D RATHER HAVE YOU THAN THE MONEY, REGGIE!” Luke screamed, bouncing on the balls of his feet, two seconds away from deciding he didn’t care what Reggie wanted because he wasn’t gonna let his friend die in front of him.

Reggie was full-on crying now, and defying Willie’s advice, he looked down, letting a tear slide down, seeing how far it fell. “Okay,” he whispered, before weakly declaring his next sentence. “Okay, I bail.”

Alex heard Julie drop the phone as all four ran to the railing to help, but the moment they all arrived, Reggie’s hands slipped.

Alex could barely register Julie screaming Reggie’s name, or the guttural sound Luke made, or the speed with which his own hand jutted out to catch his friend. But he did it. He caught his wrist. Reggie cried out at the sudden pull on his shoulder, but he tried to pull himself up. 

“YOU GOTTA SWING YOUR OTHER ARM UP, BUDDY!” Luke screamed, stretching his hand over the top of the railing. “GIVE ME YOUR ARM AND WE’LL PULL YOU UP!”

With all his remaining strength, which wasn’t much, Reggie swung his arm upwards, and it landed squarely in Luke’s palm. The boys both grunted as they first pulled his wrists, then his arms, then his shoulders, and eventually his torso.

Once over the railing, he collapsed, sitting with his back against the railing in a dazed shock. They all feared he might have been catatonic from shock until Julie launched at him from the front, hugging him around his waist and sobbing into his shoulder. They all watched his psyche slowly return to his body as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, letting the tears flow freely. 

First, Alex hugged him from his left side, then Luke from his right. They all cried together, embracing Reggie and each other, getting tears all over each other’s clothes, hair, and arms. 

“You guys, I-” Reggie started, sniffling before he could finish. “I lost the money.”

“Not another word about the money,” Julie demanded, taking his cheeks in her hands. “This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.”

“Yeah, I’m with Julie.” Luke was crying possibly more than any of them. “We’re just happy you’re on this side of the balcony and not the other one.”

Julie and Reggie giggled, the three of them holding each other tighter.

Alex couldn’t say he related to them. Alex didn’t feel happiness at that moment. Someone had just taken advantage of a kid who didn’t grow up with much money, dangling a sum that seemed unfathomable to him right in front of his nose for their own sick entertainment, and because of that, Alex almost had to watch that kid, his best friend, his brother, die right in front of his eyes.

All he felt was white-hot rage. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)))) heh... so this chapter was hard to write lolol I knew I wanted a scene like this but thinking about dangling your comfort character over a balcony and actually writing it out are two very different things. Thank you to those who read this chapter and thank you to those who didn't, but have read my other chapters (even though you won't see that thank you) ALSO: I wasn't 100% sure what trigger warnings to use for this chapter and I just used the ones off the top of my head, so if you read this and thought of any I missed, PLEASE leave them down in the comments, I want to make sure no one's reading this if it's gonna make them uncomfortable. /g
> 
> In OTHER NEWS, I finished my Juke soulmate society AU on Monday so I should start uploading that sometime next month depending on if I get another writing idea. Remember to check out my fluffy Juke Christmas fic currently being uploaded and maybe leave a comment as that fic hasn't gotten m(any) comments lolol but subscribe to this fic and leave a kudo and a comment if you enjoyed it!! If you're still here after this chapter, I'm gonna assume you're here 'til the end of this story, so I'll see you with another chapter on Saturday (or Friday if you're following the Christmas fic)!!!!


	9. Snitches Get...

Alex was the first to break from the group hug. While his friends all continued to cry and laugh onto each other, he stood up to look over the railing. Awaiting at the bottom was another damned group of Watchers, pointing their phones at Alex and waving like nothing had just happened. Like no one had almost died. _That’s it,_ Alex thought. 

Reggie’s phone was still on the ground from where Julie dropped it earlier. Alex scooped it off the ground and walked it over to the hug pile, gently lifting Reggie’s thumb and using it to unlock the phone. The first thing he was greeted with was two words in large red lettering:

_YOU BAIL_

Alex scoffed and opened the comments, scrolling ferociously as he walked through the apartment. 

“Hey!” Willie called, following closely behind. “Where are you going?”

“This is sick,” Alex muttered under his breath.

“What?”

“This is bullshit!” he called, turning around, accidentally exposing the opened comment section to Willie. 

Willie stepped back like he was afraid. “Alex… what are you doing?”

Alex was back on the warpath, leaving the apartment into the hallway. “What do you think? I’m finding this Watcher and reporting them to the cops.”

Willie picked up his pace to catch up. “Woah, I’m sorry, man, but you can’t do that!”

“What do you mean, I ‘can’t do that’?”

“The Watchers will ruin your life. I don’t know exactly what they do, but I’ve seen it happen to other Players before.”

“Willie! Do you think I care about that right now?! Reggie almost died! Right in front of all of us! In front of you!” Finally, Alex found the dare with the attached username and sent himself a screenshot.

“I get that, but you’re outnumbered! They can f-”

Willie was cut off by the elevator dinging down the hall, opening up and letting an elderly woman and her Maltese poodle off. 

Before Willie could say anything else, Alex dropped Reggie’s phone on the hall floor to be returned to him and broke in a dead run down the hall. “ALEX!” Willie cried after him, but his pace couldn’t match. In no time at all, Alex’s long legs carried him down to the elevator, and once inside, he repeatedly hit the button to close the doors, locking Willie out. The doors closed just as Willie was about to make it, and Alex’s heart ached at the sound of Willie banging on the elevator door, screaming his name, begging him to open, but Alex’s mind was made up. “ALEX, PLEASE! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!” Willie’s call became more and more distant as the elevator descended to the lobby. 

For the first time tonight, Alex was on his own. Watchers awaited him in the lobby with flashlights and cameras and calls of his name and questions of “Where’s Willie?!” or “Is Reggie okay?” like any of them cared. When Alex got across the street to the police station, he looked back to see the crowd’s reaction. They all looked at him for a moment, then scrammed in different directions. _Good,_ Alex thought, walking in.

The station was bustling with activity and Alex was pretty sure he knew why. Many people were filing vague complaints, reporting stolen property, begging police to believe them, but none of them had evidence like Alex did.

He bypassed everyone about to waste their time, cutting to the front of the line. “Hi, officer?” he greeted, interrupting a crying woman. “I, uh-”

“Son, don’t you see me talking to someone right now?”

“What happened?” Alex asked the woman.

She was hesitant before answering. “Someone stole my bike.”

His blood ran cold. Did he come to the police station just to get busted? “Like a motorcycle?”

She looked confused and sniffled. “No… just a regular bike.” _PHEW!_ “But it was the last thing my grandmother gave to me before she-”

Alex felt a bit better interrupting the woman crying over a stolen family heirloom. “Sir, I think this might be connected. There’s this dare game going on and people might be daring people to do everything people are reporting right now. Like this, look.” He stuck his phone with the photo of the comment open in front of the cop to show that ANON34607 dared Reggie to hang from a high balcony. “My friend almost died tonight doing this dare. It’s all here, you can find these people.”

“Was your friend forced?” the officer asked.

“What?”

“Did he have a choice or did someone force him to do it?”

Alex was in disbelief. “He-... he was being bribed to end his life, aren’t you supposed to do something about that?”

“Did this user plan to help your friend end his life?”

“... no?”

“Did your friend hang over the balcony with intent to end his life?”

“No, but-”

“Then there’s nothing to charge. It’s not a crime to dare someone to do something stupid. Now, when you have evidence of some actual criminal violence, we’ll be happy to hear you out.”

Alex couldn’t believe what just happened to him. As he was walking out of the station, fuming, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. A light. He looked and someone had a phone camera pointed at him, with a smirk on his face. 

Alex forcefully left through the doors, back across the street to Luke and Julie’s, when he saw a silhouetted figure with long hair and a skateboard strapped to his back mount the motorcycle parked outside the building.

“Willie?!” he called, jogging across the street as the motorcycle sped off. “Hey, Willie!”

As the figure got smaller and smaller in the distance, a cloth was put over Alex’s mouth as he was held from behind. Alex struggled to fight his assailant, to keep his eyes open, but the world was getting so, so dark.

Until there was nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!! Thanks for stopping by on this update and for staying caught up so far! We're getting close to the end so thank you for sticking with me this far and supporting the story :) I finished another story and it's out of beta so I should be uploading that one soon!! 'Tis Juke centered!! But yeah anyway as usual leave a comment and a kudo and sub if you fancy alerts with updates!!


	10. Stiches

The first thing he felt was cold. He was lying on something cold. His vision was blurry when he opened his eyes and he had to blink a couple of times to clear it. The cold thing he was laying on was also hard, and he felt a crick in his neck as he looked around. It looked like some kind of storage unit, but he was the only thing being stored. Still, being alone in small dark spaces was not something Alex was a huge fan of. “Okay, very funny guys,” he said, banging a fist on the storage unit door from the inside. He tried to lift from the bottom to no avail. “Seriously, you can let me out now!” He checked his phone for signal but got distracted by his bank saying he had an urgent alert. He opened the alert to find that all of his money was missing from his account. Not all the money gotten from his dares, _all_ of his money. The responsible, debt-free Alex now had a bank balance in the negatives. He was also unnerved by the fact that his phone had been on the whole time, recording his unconscious body.

He heard a laptop start-up noise behind him and turned around to see an old Mac with a cracked screen sitting in the middle of the floor. The computer was spitting images and GIFs onto the screen as it had before, but much quicker now. 

“Hello, Alex,” that stupid, stupid, _stupid_ robot voice began. “You broke the rules. You are our Prisoner. We told you not to snitch. Now, we control your life. We control your family. We control your future. The only way out is to win the final round. You do not have enough Watchers to qualify for the finals, so better luck next year. Better luck next year. Better luck next year.” Webcam photos of Alex, all of his information, and all of his biological family’s information flooded the screen, but that wasn’t what worried him. There were pictures of Luke, Julie, and Reggie flashing onto the screen that the Watchers should never have had. Their birth certificates and Social Security cards. Photos of Julie with her family and Luke’s parents. Alex had dragged them down with him.

The computer repeated that final phrase as Alex looked for a way out. He scratched at the walls trying to find a secret flap or keyhole or anything. 

“ALEX!” he suddenly heard called. “ALEX, WHERE ARE YOU, BUDDY?”

 _Luke?_ “HERE!” he screamed, banging on the storage unit door.

He heard multiple sets of footsteps and a clinking sound. “There’s a key here! Hold on!”

A couple of seconds of labor and he was out of the storage unit, breathing the fresh, smoggy LA air again. 

“What are you guys doing here? You have to go!” 

“Not without you!” Julie said it like it was obvious. 

As he looked at the three people standing in front of him, it was glaringly obvious that someone was missing. “Where’s Willie?” They all looked between each other like they were telepathically arguing over who should tell him. “Guys?!”

“He got us somewhere safe,” Luke started. “Told us you were a… a Prisoner now? What does that even mean?”

“They have all my information. They control me,” Alex replied, defeated.

“Willie said you can only be free from the game if you win the final round, so he…” Reggie started, but his voice trailed off.

Alex was starting to connect the pieces. “He what?”

“He did a dare to get himself into the finals, so you could beat him. His dare was to kickflip off the biggest dome at the Griffith. It was actually pretty cool.” Julie lightly swatted Reggie’s arm.

“That’s it? But he’s okay?”

No one answered. 

Alex was getting tired of this. “Guys!”

“When he landed,” Luke started timidly. “He- He got the alert that he was in the top spot, but then these guys came out of nowhere and they… they beat him up, Alex. It looked bad. They took him away unconscious and took his phone.”

Before this night, news like this would send Alex into a fetal position, shaking and crying. Not anymore. He lifted his phone from his pocket and saw that for some reason, the majority of his Watchers were still there, deriving some perverse entertainment from this. _Let them._

“Hey, Watchers,” he started. “Crazy night, right? Now I’m gonna need you guys to help me finish it.”

“Alex, what are you doing?” he heard Julie ask, but he continued. 

“Give me a dare that’s gonna knock everyone out of the park. Get me in the top spot. I don’t want 2nd place, I want 1st.”

It didn’t take long at all before his phone chimed with that dastardly Nerve noise. It took him barely any time to read it, stick his phone back into his pocket, and face the group.

“Get me to the train tracks.”

_Jump on a moving train, then jump off: $35,000_

That was what the dare said, but only Alex needed to know that. As they all crammed in the Uber to get there, Alex didn’t even think about what he was doing. He simply kept checking the clock, making sure they were on time for 2:47, which was when the train would pass the spot he was aiming for. 

Soon, they were there and the train was on its way. 

“Okay, buddy, what’s your plan?” Reggie asked. “Why train tracks?”

“Just wait.”

He heard the whistle. 

They continued to ask him what he was doing, but he ignored them, focusing all his energy on the 4th car of the freight train, which he’d jump onto and ride to the soft patch of grass about 2,000 feet away. And then he’d get to the finals and let Willie have the win. He’d worry about this Prisoner thing another day, but he had terrifying visions of what these people would do to a beaten, battered soft-hearted Willie in a sadistic game like this if someone else was his opponent. 

The first car passed and he began to run.

“ALEX!”

Then the second.

Then the third.

“ALEX, NO!”

He’d busted his lip open for sure. But the top half of his body was securely on the train. With all his strength, he lifted his legs onto it as well.

First half done. 

The patch of grass was soon approaching. Doing this right would not result in anything good happening, but doing it wrong would result in death.

He felt the nervousness creeping in as he got to the back of the train for a running start. The grass was coming into his vision and Alex calmed his fears with thoughts of Willie’s smile in the sparkling lake. The contrast of the freezing water and his warm hands. How soft his face felt holding it. Alex ran. How Willie’s laugh weakened and strengthened Alex simultaneously, turning him fearless. 

He jumped.

And he didn’t die.

Hurt like hell, though.

He ran his hands over the grass, relishing the fact that he was still seeing the night sky because if he was seeing sunshine, that would mean he was in Heaven.

His phone chimed from Nerve, and he didn’t even check. He only opened his phone to make a call.

“HOW ARE YOU ALIVE?!” Julie screamed. 

“Go,” Alex said. “Get out of here.”

“Where are you? We’re coming to get you.”

“No, I have to do this alone.”

“The hell you will,” Luke said into Julie’s phone.

“They know where you guys live. Go to a motel. Make sure you aren’t followed. Pay cash.” He didn’t know what would be required of Willie once they were in the final round, but he knew enough to know these people liked to see violence. “If I don’t make it, I love you guys,” he said as a black car with a driver in a ski mask pulled up in front of Alex’s spot on the grass. 

“Get in,” the driver demanded and Alex obliged.

“Alex, wha-” Click. After ending the call, he pulled the phone away from his ear and read the one alert from Nerve that actually mattered. 

_YOU ARE NOW IN FIRST PLACE_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys sorry I didn't post yesterday I was having weird anxiety about my writing of this story so this is being posted in a very "f*ck it" mentality lol as I've said, be sure to check out my juke Christmas fic which is ending tomorrow so check it out! :)
> 
> We're in the final stretch of this story though!! Only two more chapters (the next one is gonna be pretty short) and then the epilogue!! So thank you guys for following along with me this far :))


	11. Finals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Guns, near-suicide

The car drove for what felt like hours but probably wasn’t. As he passed all the well-known buildings and streets, Alex drummed his fingers on his thigh to keep himself calm.

Not soon at all, the car drove to the top of a gravelly hill, pulling up next to a large, dilapidated, roofless building. Abandoned. 

“Front door,” the masked driver ordered. “They’ll let you in.”

Alex got out and walked up to the front, where another masked guy was waiting as a bouncer. The mask’s eyeholes looked Alex up and down before opening the door, generating an explosion of sound. 

Alex's ears seemed to naturally muffle the sound as he looked at all the multicolored ski masks he passed as they cheered, still pointing their phone cameras, and he thought about how each person represented a life, a job, a family, a child who grew up to enjoy and support a game like Nerve. These people in this building were the core of Nerve and everything it represented. He noted a large monitor close to the top of the structure, turned off, and he dreaded however that might come into play. The masked Watchers cleared a path for him until he arrived at a large circle, sectioned off by caution tape, in the middle of the makeshift arena. Once he got past the tape, he made a mental note that terrified him to the core: one gun in the middle.

Alex waited for Willie to show up in whatever condition he was in, but almost 3 full minutes of cheering later, he was still the only contestant in the arena. “ARE YOU PEOPLE GONNA WASTE MY WHOLE NIGHT?” he asked the crowd. “WHERE THE HELL IS MY OPPONENT?”

His question was answered by the monitor behind him making a glitching noise. He turned to it as it glitched to life, revealing Willie. Unconscious in a hospital bed with no idea what was going on. Hooked up to IVs. Every bit of his face either busted or bruised.

All of Alex’s artificial toughness began to wither away as he took in the sight, as he realized the gun in the middle of the arena wasn’t for Willie’s use, or even to be used on him. 

“Battle to the death,” the robotic voice decreed. “Shoot yourself, and Willie wins. Don’t, and he dies.”

The crowd cheered as a gloved hand on the screen lifted a syringe of clear liquid, putting both it and unconscious Willie in Alex’s view.

“You have one minute to decide.”

The arena cheered, but to Alex everything was quiet. He bent down to pick up the revolver. It was heavy. Not as heavy as he’d expected, but he’d never held a gun, so what did he know?

The dare didn’t leave any room for nuance. He couldn’t shoot himself in the leg or arm and demand they both be freed, this was about death. These people wanted to see death, and Willie wouldn’t be safe until they did. 

Alex lifted the heavy object, putting the barrel against his head. 

He thought of his family. Willie would use the money to help them, for sure. His sister would go to college without accepting any government funding. His parents would regret the way they treated him, only looking back with fond memories now that he was gone.

He undid the gun’s safety, which he’d seen in a movie once, and he put his finger on the trigger, looking at Willie onscreen the whole time.

Luke would blame himself for the whole thing. The night would be over for everyone, but Luke would have to deal with the trauma of almost losing one best friend and actually losing another, and he’d think it was all his fault. He’d never recover from that. And Julie. Julie had had enough loss in her life. Who was gonna beat her at Connect Four? Or at least, eventually beat her? And Reggie. _Oh, God, Reggie._ This night and his entire life had already been traumatic enough, how would Reggie deal with losing the person who saved his life? Would he find solace knowing his roommate and best friend died to save another life? What would the band sound like with a different drummer? Would the fans notice? Julie, Reggie, and Luke would notice. 

Alex couldn’t. His hand shook as he lowered the gun from his temple and he mentally willed the dare to be a bluff, willed the Watchers to give him an alternative option.

The timer hit 0 and the needle was immediately plunged into Willie’s chest.

“NO!” Alex screamed, falling to his knees.

The monitor glitched as the syringe’s contents were emptied into Willie, fading to black when the liquid was all gone. 

Alex couldn’t move, or breathe. 

The robotic voice came back for one final announcement. “Congratulations, Alex. You have won Nerve. All your money has been returned to you, along with that of your opponent. You are free. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to upload this on the 26th but forgot TWO DAYS IN A ROW lol but yeah sorry this chapter is so short, I just couldn't think of any way to make it longer!! The actual story will conclude in a few days and then the epilogue will be posted either January 2nd or 3rd but I'm aiming for the 2nd. Thank you for reading, and I hope you're not too mad after reading that ending LOL


	12. Three Masks

The Watchers dispersed, satisfied. They had exits all throughout the front and sidewalls, so most of them could simply turn around and be in line to leave. 

Alex was still in the middle of the floor, on his knees, holding an unused gun. He’d only known Willie for one night and he knew the world was darker now. _He_ was darker. His brain replayed the syringe entering on an endless loop, wondering what kind of person could go through with something like that, but was he much better? Willie didn’t have a choice, he was asleep. Alex was the one with the choice and he’d chosen himself over another human being. The best human being. 

And the crowd was just leaving, undeterred. How could they not feel it? How could they not feel Willie’s absence? All Alex could think about was Willie, still in his hospital bed with a sheet over his face, and all he could do was feel every second Willie got colder and colder. If they could feel it too, they’d be like Alex right now, kneeling, feeling the gravel dig into their skin, trying to figure out what the hell to do now. But they weren’t, and it was pissing Alex off. They had to feel it. The shuffling of everyone’s feet were too loud, but Alex needed to be heard. Willie needed to be heard. 

He pointed the gun in the air, ready to make them feel the fear Alex felt with the gun to his head. The fear Reggie felt dangling off of a balcony. The fear Willie must have felt as his last conscious moments were spent being beaten. Wherever the bullet landed was where it landed. These people would have to be okay with those odds, right? Or did it only matter if their lives were the ones on the line?

Alex pulled the trigger.

_Click._

_What?_

_Click. Click. Click. Click click click._ The gun was empty. How could the gun be empty?

Before Alex could thoroughly question it, a new danger arose. Two masked figures were briskly walking in his direction, dead set on him. _Is this what happens to Nerve winners? Do Watchers just come and mug them for their winnings?_ It made sense now that Alex thought about it.

He braced himself for a fight, but the Watchers didn’t attack him in the arena. Each one just forcefully grabbed him by an arm and dragged him, allowing him enough time to find his footing and quickly walk himself backwards. Alex looked behind them to see they were taking him to a back emergency exit. Alex prepared to threaten. _“I’ll unmask you and get my phone out and leftover Watchers will see your face and know who you are.” Yeah, that sounds scary enough._

As the men dragged him through the door, down to the bottom of the hill the building was sitting on, he prepared for his speech. Finally, they hit the base and the people let him go.

“I’ll unmask you! I swear! And then- and then people will- they’ll know, and-” The threats were coming out much less threatening than Alex would have liked, so he resorted to putting his fists up.

The figures looked at each other with 0 signs of fear, then back at Alex. “Dude,” the beefier one said, and Alex recognized the voice immediately. 

No. Way.

The figure who spoke removed his mask, revealing none other than Luke Patterson. _But then that means-_ The other removed his mask, and underneath was Reggie. “It’s us!”

Alex ran at his friends, throwing an arm over each of their necks, pulling him close. “Woah! We’re happy to see you too,” Luke said, patting Alex’s back.

In the warmth of his friends, Alex could finally do what he couldn’t bring himself to do in front of those monsters in the arena: he cried. He let the tears soak into the all black clothing Luke and Reggie had donned for this event. “I- I killed him,” he sobbed. “Guys, I killed Willie. I killed him.”

Luke broke the hug, pushing Alex out so he could look at both of them. “Dude, no, you didn’t.” Alex felt his own heart stop beating. “Willie is fine.”

His heart started again, faster now, and his tears gained heat. “Wh- what do you mean? What do you mean, ‘he’s fine’, I saw him die! He died right onscreen.”

“No, he didn’t, he’s still sleeping,” Reggie assured. “Probably waiting for you right about now.”

This was a cruel joke. Alex knew it had to be. “I- I saw… the Watcher! The Watcher gave him the shot! He’s gone!”

“Alex,” Luke said softly, pulling out his phone. Alex watched as he opened Nerve, looking for Willie’s screen name. “Did you ever stop to wonder who the Watcher was?” After finding the user, he clicked it, still showing a screen of Willie lying in the bed. “You can sign off now!”

The camera switched angles, revealing a Watcher in a ski mask with the eye part cut out, revealing most of the top half of their face. Brown eyes, long eyelashes, and a stray curl poking out from underneath. Too good to be true, it had to be. “Is that-...”

“Julie,” Reggie finished, signing Luke out of Nerve altogether. “Who just injected Willie with saline.”

Alex couldn’t speak, so Luke continued. “All we had to do was find Willie’s hospital and send Julie in with a ski mask and bam! They thought she was one of them. She told the guy who was supposed to do it that they thought Willie might need an extra guard, and they bought it. Then she switched out the anthrax they gave her with a saline needle! For you, all we did was get enough people interested in checking out the gun before you showed up, so when they were passing it around, we took out the bullet! All we needed was for you to not pull the trigger and realize the gun was empty, so Julie could stick Willie. The guys booked it as soon as they thought she actually killed him, though, so she’s not still there with them or anything.”

Alex was still comprehending. “So Willie is…”

“Fine,” Reggie finished again. “Willie is fine. A little beat up, but they’re both safe.”

Alex had the best friends in the entire universe. They were dumb, but also geniuses. They had to be in danger every step of the way, but they pulled it off. 

Alex pulled them in for another hug, still crying. “Thank you,” he whispered. There was so much more to say, but that was all Alex could manage at the moment.

He snapped away from the hug. “But the Watchers! We gotta move him to another hospital or something! What if they find out he isn’t really dead?!”

Reggie scoffed. “They’re just regular people, dude. Regular people who think they just witnessed a murder. They’re gonna stay as far away from what just happened as possible.”

“Can I go see him?”

“Tomorrow.” Alex frowned, so Reggie continued. “You guys went through a lot tonight. You both need an emotionless day to chill. Luke is gonna go down to the hospital and stay with them just in case anything goes down.”

Alex wanted to protest, but he knew they were right. He needed to sleep for at least 24 hours straight. The sun began to come up as the three of them headed somewhere they could call a ride.

Alex had never seen a more beautiful sunrise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :))) I know y'all didn't really think I was gonna kill my comfort skater I KNOW you didn't.  
> So this is the end of the conflict of the story!! Soon to be followed up with a short epilogue, but thank you guys so much for the love and support you gave me on this story, it meant a lot!! I wrote this story in like a fit of rage because I was working on another juke au and i hated how it was coming out so I took a "break" from it and ended up writing like 15k words in less than 36 hours and lowkey I feel like it shows LMAO but I'm happy with it overall and I hope you guys are too :)


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